


Rain

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sort of major character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-13
Updated: 2013-04-13
Packaged: 2017-12-08 09:49:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/759991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He couldn't remember what it was like not to feel the rain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rain

The rain made a slashing noise as it hit the window panes, racing each other towards the cold concrete ground. Everything seemed to drop, fall, cascade towards the floor. A droplet, one insignificant droplet means so very little in a such a storm. A man, just one man, means so very little when people are born, die and grow every second that passes. And yet, that one droplet had the potential to change the face of the window it slid down, if only for a few bright seconds. 

It had been raining since he could remember, and he wasn't sure he could remember ever not feeling the rain soaking through his skin. The grey skies of London gave their own symphonic cry, but it still couldn't drown out John's own, still couldn't cover the sleepless nights and bleary eyed days. 

Each droplet slammed itself against the glass, desperate in its bid to make it to the earth as the skies cried their very own grief. He wished he could cry. It would be easier if he could cry, if he could identify how he was feeling and mark his pain. Instead he just felt empty, as if some higher power had opened his chest in his sleep and carved out his heart and punctured his skin. Slipping out of his skin his emotions escaped from him they hid in the shadows of their house. _His house _.__

It didn’t really hurt, or more accurately it couldn't hurt. If it wasn't real, then how could the pain hurt him? He wasn't dead, couldn't be dead, for if he were then surely John would feel something. Instead it was a lump in his throat he could not swallow away, brimming just underneath the surface, smoke rising that he couldn’t keep in his hands no matter how hard he tried. 

The worst part was that nothing had changed. 

On the kitchen table the microscope still stood as if at any moment he would rush back to it with another sample of mould on the bread John had forgotten to throw away. Next to it, a pair of reading glasses John had lost the day before and now couldn't bring himself to find. A packet of cigarettes was tucked behind a loose tile by the fireplace and a needle was still hidden away in the ripped section under the sofa. Everything that had irritated him to breaking point still surrounded him, enveloped him and mocked him in his weakness and inability to move any of it away. 

And yet, nothing was the same. 

The sheets were on the beds and not left scrunched up at the foot of the sofa. The gun was still in the draw, not left casually lying around for the next crime scene to arrive. Sherlock’s possessions were still where he had left them and not constantly moving around and tripping John up and getting in the way of absolutely everything. 

This was not the first time he had dealt with death; a broken part of his mind whispered he should be better than this, should be able to cope, but it was pointless, because he couldn’t. He knew, somewhere back from his training, that to move on from a death you first had to acknowledge it happened but that too seemed a herculean task. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t see it in his mind, the image of a falling man is never one you forget. And yet still something whispered treacherously he couldn't have died that day. 

He remembered when he had watched his screen, all those years ago, and had seen the man fall from the towers surrounded by his paper. Everything else was blurred, but falling figure is stark against the sky. It looked so wrong; humans were not meant to fly as he had, human kind had been forbidden it's wings and should never try to make them. To spread their arms and embrace the ground, to have their body crumple on impact like a play-dough figure thrown to the kitchen floor in a toddler’s s temper. _Splat _.__

The rain kept falling, the rhythm it made the only noise in the small flat. The screeching and singing of the bow on string was like a ghost clinging to the walls and echoing in his mind. “ _Be quiet John, I am trying to think _.”__

_“I didn’t say anything _.”__

“ **You think too loudly ******,” It took a full minute for it to register that the words had been said aloud, and they had not left his own lips. It took another to muster the strength to rise from the chair, drag his eyes from the streaming rain, and wonder why his corrupted mind played such tricks. It took five minutes for him to speak, and still he stood there in front of him as if he hadn’t left.

“No.”

“That wasn’t really the welcome back I expected.”

The punch he had anticipated, though he did nothing to avoid it. The feel of his skin was real, the smell of the irritating aftershave he wore was as crisp and clean as the suit beneath his hands as he gripped the lapels and pulled him down and let his lips touch his once more. 

It was familiar, it was toe-curling and warmth and breath back to lungs he was sure hadn’t been working for so long. The heated breath against his cheek as he caught his breath back was like the dust being blown off, the curve of his small smile as simple as it had always been but meaning more than it ever had before. 

“I want to punch you again,” he paused, his hand coming up to rest on his cheek, “but I’ll wait till later for that. And an explanation. I want one of those too.”

“Later,” he agreed. 

“Yes. Later.” 

It might have stopped raining, he didn't look out the window to check.

**Author's Note:**

> I like the idea of ridiculously long extended metaphors


End file.
